Foster Care Lawsuit Filed

Advocacy Group Seeks Safe Havens

October 21, 1998|By SALLY KESTIN Staff Writer

A 3-year-old beaten so severely she suffered a concussion, an 8-year-old forced to commit a sex act, a 1-year-old shuttled among 10 homes in five months.

All happened in Broward County foster homes, where abused and neglected children are at great risk of further harm in unsafe, overcrowded homes, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday against social services officials.

Filed by the nonprofit Youth Law Center on behalf of the county's 1,100 foster children, the civil rights suit specifically names eight youths who have been harmed in state care.

One of them is a girl, 11, who was lured away by another foster child and gang-raped by several men. The girl was the subject of a story in Tuesday's Sun-Sentinel.

``Every month that goes by, more kids are being molested and hurt,'' said Fort Lauderdale lawyer Howard Talenfeld, who serves on the center's board. ``Many of the county's foster children suffer worse abuse and neglect in foster homes than the homes they were taken from.''

The suit asks a federal judge to force the state to provide safe homes for children removed from their families. It was filed against Ed Feaver, head of the Department of Children & Families, and Johnny Brown, administrator for the agency in Broward County.

Brown said he hopes the state can resolve the suit quickly, ``so we can use the limited resources to feed and shelter the children instead of trying to pay for lawyers and [court) monitors.''

In similar suits filed across the country, government agencies have had to pay legal fees, but the court action has also brought in much-needed money to the child welfare systems, said Marcia Robinson Lowry of Children's Rights Inc., a nonprofit advocacy organization.

In Connecticut, a lawsuit brought 700 new caseworkers, $17 million for children's services and more foster homes statewide.

Feaver is skeptical.

``I'd love to know this is a method that brings huge amounts of money into government,'' he said. ``I haven't seen it. But who knows?''

Both Feaver and Brown said they had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on the specific cases cited.

Using pseudonyms to protect the children, the lawsuit identifies eight youths who were abused and neglected in foster care within the past two years. Among them:

* Sarah Foster, 3, taken from her family in January 1996, was placed in a crowded foster home with several other children. An older foster boy who had a history of violence beat the girl on her head with a ceramic towel holder. Sarah suffered a concussion and was hospitalized for three days.

* Jason Walters, 8, was forced to perform oral sex on a 16-year-old boy in a foster home that was licensed for four children. It had 11. Jason had seen his state caseworker just once in the previous year. The older boy was removed, and Jason continues to live in the same home with six other foster children.

* Jacques Jones, 1, was taken from his family in May. Since then, the social services agency, unable to find the child a permanent home, has moved him from foster home to foster home _ 10 times.

``I'm not making excuses for that,'' Feaver said. ``I don't think any of that is acceptable.''

The suit says agency workers are overworked, carrying up to eight times the national average of 15 cases. They are not making the required monthly visit to each child, agency records show.

The state puts children into foster homes without proper screening, mixing vulnerable children with kids who are violent and sexually aggressive, the suit says. Foster parents do not get the background information they need to properly care for children, the center contends.

``As a result, children are frequently placed in inappropriate homes with foster parents who cannot protect them,'' the suit says.

Many of the county's foster children are truant from school or are simply missing, according to the suit. The agency currently cannot account for more than 80 children who have run away from foster homes, agency records show.

While on the streets, the children are beaten, sexually assaulted and exposed to drugs, the suit says. The social services agency makes little effort to find them, the center claims.

A 15-year-old girl, identified in the suit as Vivian Rogers, ran away from her foster home. She called her caseworker to make arrangements to obtain her asthma medication, said David Bazerman, a lawyer for the child.

But instead of bringing the child back, the worker simply dropped the medication off to the teen, Bazerman said.

The Youth Law Center, which has used lawsuits to force reforms in California and other states, first notified officials in Florida of its plan to file suit in August 1997.

At the time, ``we believed foster care in Broward County was dangerous, overcrowded and inadequately supervised,'' Talenfeld said. ``Now, we believe it's a system in crisis.''